11
Things We Really Need Republicans To Protect Our Children From
Folks from the Republican Party are always going on about how
much they care about our children and want to protect them from harm.
That’s
why we need to have transgender bathroom laws, they claim, to keep these
weirdos out of our public restrooms.
Though GOP-affiliated
deviants who just happen to have a “wide stance” get a free
pass, of course.
The Republican Party cares about children so much, they even
do their dangdest to protect the ones that haven’t been born yet.
While
we greatly appreciate the efforts of these “compassionate conservatives,” we
also have 11 more issues we’d like for them to address to ensure the safety and
well-being of our kids. We’re surprised the GOP hasn’t already thought of them.
11
issues the Republican Party should address if they really want to protect our
children.
2.
Poverty: The
Republican Party also needs to join non-neoliberal Democrats in protecting
children from the devastating effects of poverty. Yet a report from UNICEFreveals the sorry fact that the
US ranks number four among developed nations for child poverty. The American
Psychological Association (APA) warns that food insecurity,
lack of proper housing, lack of health care, exposure to lead and other
contaminants, and the chronic stress that goes along with these things have
long-term adverse effects on these kids’ development, schooling, and
future ability to function as happy, healthy and productive adults.
3.
Poison in our water supply: Whether it’s
lead leaching from old pipes into our drinking water — as is happening in crumbling former
industrial centers like Flint — or billions of gallons of fracking fluids getting
dumped into California’s aquifers, decades of budget cuts, neglect, and
deregulation are a threat to the health and safety of our children. If the
Republican Party really cares about them, they’ll increase spending to repair
our nation’s infrastructure and enforce our environmental laws.
4.
Guns: Public Health Watch reports
3,000 children under the age of 18 die from gun violence every year, and 20
children wind up in the hospital from gun-related injuries each day. Yet two
million children under the age of 14 live in homes with firearms that are
loaded and unlocked. Yet members of the Republican Party refuse to even
consider commonsense gun safety laws that would protect our children from
injury and death.
5.
Illness: Once
we’ve made sure our nation’s kids have safe drinking water, stable housing,
enough food to eat, and safety locks for their family members’ guns, we’ll also
want to keep them healthy, right? To protect our children from illness and
chronic health conditions, we need to make sure they have access to healthcare
for their checkups, wellness visits, and vaccines, right? But wait … Many kids
live in states run by the Republican Party, whose governors refused to expand
Medicaid. It’s a good thing that the Democrats snuck in an ACA provision that
helps get more kids covered. #ThanksObama.
6.
Child abuse: While child
abuse occurs among all religions and political parties, authoritarian parenting
and extreme discipline methods are common among the right-wing evangelical
Christians who make up a large part of the Republican Party’s base. In the book
“Breaking Their Will”
author Janet Heimlich describes the “Bible-based” child-rearing practices and
family structures that lead to physical, emotional and sexual abuse. And,
thanks to the Republican Party’s fondness for diverting public school funds to
homeschooling parents and religious charter schools, these children cannot get
any help because they often have little or no contact with the outside world.
7.
Global warming: Thanks to the
Republican Party’s fierce denial of human-caused climate change, our nation is
way behind in making efforts to address this looming disaster. We’re not only
selling out our children’s future so we can keep burning fossil fuels, we’re
also endangering our entire planet. No wonder a group of child and youth
activists is suing the US government for
failing to protect our natural resources as required by the US Constitution. So
far the courts in Washington and Oregon have handed these kids two major
victories in allowing their lawsuit to proceed.
8.
Deportation: Since the
Republican Party claims to care about family values, you’d think they’d want to
keep families together and children with their parents, right? Alas, this isn’t
the case for children who were born in the US but whose parents are
undocumented workers, or for children who grew up here from a young age but who
don’t have their paperwork. Alas, Donald Trump and
his fellow right-wingers don’t seem inclined to help these children or their
families.
9. Zika
and other infectious diseases: In February, President Barack Obama asked Congress for
$1.9 billion to fight Zika abroad and prepare for it here at home. On May 18,
the GOP-led House grudgingly passed a measly $622 million bill.
The Republican Party claims to care about fetuses, yet they’re not
willing to protect the unborn from the “ziki fly” despite
its risks to pregnant women and the children they carry.
10.
Bullies: Back to the
Republican Party’s noxious transgender bathroom laws. We fear they’ve made a
terrible mistake. As it turns out, transgender people are
far more likely to be victims than
they are to molest people. By making someone who looks like a girl or a woman
use a men’s bathroom because they were born with male genitalia, these laws
will make them even more at
risk of bullying. In fact, we would love it if the GOP would protect our
children by banning all forms
of bullying in schools and other public spaces. Imagine how much safer our children would be if their
schools made it harder for them to get bullied for things like gender
non-conformity, choosing not to pray in school,
or just being a nerd?
11.
Racism: Since the majority of babies born
in the US are now non-white, it would also be great if the Republican party
would enact some laws that would protect these children from the toxic effects
of systemic racism. Alas, it’s too late for the many generations of
children in the US who’ve been subjected to racism since the founding of our
nation, but the sooner we change, the better.
